I hope that you will be able to attend our next lecture on the 29th March when Douglas Skeggs will be talking to us about David Hockney, a very talented artist who has never stood still and who is also a draughtsman, photographer and stage designer. He turns 80 in July but is still working. Many of us will have seen his current exhibition at Tate Britain or are planning to see it before it closes on the 29th May and this lecture will, I am sure, enhance the experience. After our lecture, others may be tempted to visit it too!

Visitors to this lecture will be asked to make a donation in the usual way.

Interest has been expressed in taking over from Lesley as our Society’s secretary.  However as this has not yet been confirmed, if you are interested in finding out more about it, please contact Lesley or myself. As was mentioned at our recent coffee morning, being a member of the committee is an excellent way of meeting other members and previous secretarial experience is not essential.

Kind regards,

Felicity Furber (Chairman)

Dear Member,

Next Wednesday on the 1^st March not only will we have the pleasure of listening to Jane Tapley telling us about social life in Spa Towns, which I am sure will be illustrated with some beautiful images, but you can bring your guests for free as compensation for not being able to bring a guest to the lecture last November.

On the 1^st March, Ann Pitt will be selling tickets for the trip to Renishaw Hall on the 10^th May and Rosemary Langman will be selling the last few remaining tickets for the tea party at Binswood Audley on the 22^nd  March.

I know that many of you receiving this will not have had the great pleasure of being entertained and educated in equal measure by Mary Alexander last week. However, there is a link to the reading list of texts and venues which Mary mentioned at the foot of this update and I know that some members who heard Mary are not able to come on the 1^st March. Kate Varney is to be congratulated and thanked for planning this event and the lovely colours of the Côte d’Azur brightened a February day.

If anyone has not visited the Nadfas website (www.nadfas.org.uk/branding) and wants to know a little more about what lies behind our rebranding, I shall be doing a 10 minute presentation at 10.30am and 1.30pm on the 1^st March in the auditorium where we have our lectures. This will include part of the Nadfas video.

If you wish to attend any of the National AGM events in May and cannot find details of these, please tell a committee member and we shall send you the information.

Best wishes,
Felicity Furber (Chairman).

Click here for Reading List, Riviera Paradise (PDF)

We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at our next lecture on the 1st February when Diana Lloyd will be talking about The Interiors of Jane Austin’s Heroines. For those of you who would like to learn more about it, there is a more detailed description of the lecture on our website than in the hand out. You can see this by scrolling down to the end of the lecture page.

On the 1st February, John Clark will be selling tickets for the trip to Dorset (24 – 27 September). This is a luxury tour and members will stay at the new Duchess of Cornwall Hotel in Poundbury which was recently opened by Prince Charles. The cost is £450.00 per person ( supplement for a single room ).

Also on the 1st, Rosemary Langman will be selling tickets for the tea party on the 22nd March. This will be an opportunity for members new to this area to meet other RLSDFAS members. More established members may like to come to meet/welcome some of the new/unknown faces whom they see in the foyer before our lectures. The tickets cost £10.00 each and the venue is at Binswood Audley, Binswood Ave, Leamington Spa CV32 5SF from three to five pm. If it proves to be popular, Rosemary and her sub group will consider another “social” event for the autumn. Many societies around the country organize one or two inexpensive social activities a year. For those who cannot attend the lecture, if you contact me, I shall pass your request for tickets on to the Rosemary.

Shortly I shall be sending out invitations to members who joined RLSDFAS after the start of the season to the Coffee Morning on the 17th March. You may wish to keep a space for this in your diary.

May I remind members that the National AGM on Wednesday 17th May in Birmingham is open to all members as are the various excursions the following day etc. You can find further details in the NADFAS Review and by following the link at the end of this update.

May I also remind you that the concert, which we sponsor and for which you can buy two tickets for the price of one, is on Wednesday 1st March and not on Friday 1st March. Details are on your programme card.

Felicity Furber, Chairman

On the 17^th February 2017, we are in for a treat with a day of Special Interest on Riviera Paradise – A Fusion of Art, Design and Pleasure on the Cote d’Azur in the 1920s  by Mary Alexander who has been highly rated on her previous visits to us.  While it may be grey and cold in Warwickshire, she will take us on Le Train Bleu, with its newly commissioned windows by Lalique, to the blue skies of the Cote d Azur in the 1920s and 1930s. The story will fuse the art of Picasso and Matisse with the music of Cole Porter, the designs of Chanel, the writing of Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway and the work of many other fascinating and talented people.

Tickets costing £40 will be on sale on the 30^th November.

On the 1^st March 2017, Jane Tapley, another “old friend” whom we highly esteem, will be talking about the Social Life in spa towns. Any member can “bring a  friend for free” to the lecture which they would normally attend on that day. In this we are following the example of other societies and I hope it will compensate for you not being able to bring a guest to our lecture in the Spa Centre’s Studio on the 30^th November.

Finally can I urge you to think of taking on, in July 2017, Lesley Rayner’s role as our RLS DFAS secretary (and not any individual’s secretary) as I mentioned at our last lecture.

 
Felicity Furber  (Chairman)

Magyars and Gypsies – Liszt and the Hungarian Nation

Wednesday 6th September 2017

Rosamund Bartlett

Franz Liszt was a cosmopolitan figure – he even visited Leamington Spa –but with the rise of Hungarian nationalism he was increasingly seen as the soul of the Magyar people, a position solidified with his wildly popular Hungarian Rhapsodies. Why did Liszt and others associate Hungarian music with gypsies?

This lecture explores what it was to be Hungarian at the time of the creation of the new capital city of Budapest in 1867, and why the much younger Bartok challenged his view of the Hungarian national style.

On the 6^th July the AGM will start at 10.30 am for both morning and afternoon members. Jenny Edwards will be selling raffle tickets before this. The prize is a book entitled “The Paintings that Revolutionised Art”. If any member is planning to pay their subscription on that day I have been asked to remind you that only a cheque and not cash is acceptable.

At 11.15 Hilary Guise will give us a lecture on Marc Chagall and the Supremacy of Blue. Hilary was born in South Africa and trained as a painter at the Central St Martin’s School of Art. She exhibits her work in Europe and the UK and currently at the Royal Overseas League in London. She lectures at the main museums in London for American  Universities.

In the Autumn the committee will be considering which groups and organisations we should sponsor with the money which we get back in Gift Aid and any money which we make on the raffle. (I believe that Stradfas who have a regular raffle make £1000 a year)  There are groups that we help each year such as the Playbox Theatre and other Young Arts initiatives to  encourage an interest in the arts among the young who may not otherwise encounter them. However there are practitioners of various arts who want to help disadvantaged people especially children and who would be able to start their project with a small injection of capital.  Stadfas would like us to jointly explore the possibility of using the arts to help bereaved children or young carers. We would also look sympathetically at a single donation to help preserve something that is an important part of our artistic heritage. For example we sent a small donation to the costs involved with the formation of the Public Catalogue and with the Staffordshire Hoard.  If any member knows of possible appropriate recipients of our donations please let me know so that we can consider these in the autumn.

This year we gave a donation to help with one of the artistic workshops that were part of the One world Link – Day of the African Child on the 16^th June in  Leamington Spa. 500 children from primary schools took part in this event. It seemed to us to be a very enjoyable educational experience  even if the skype link with a school in Sierra Leone  could have been better.

On the 15^th June, four of the committee visited Coventry Cathedral as we have several members who live in Coventry.  There are several areas where Nadfas’ expertise and volunteers would be welcomed by the Cathedral especially as it looks towards its centenary in 2018.

Felicity Furber, Chairman.

We enjoyed an interesting and amusing lecture on Capability Brown on the 4^th May. If you would like to read a report on it, it should appear in The Courier of Friday, 13^th May.

On the 1^st June, Mary-Rose Rivett-Carnac will be telling us how the Public Catalogue Foundation came to be established in 2003 to find, photograph and record over 200,000 oil paintings that are publicly owned and in the care of the State, Local Authority and Charitable Trusts. We will hear about the detective work involved, the intriguing paintings discovered and assistance given by NADFAS members. £6 million was raised for this project towards  which we, like many others, gave one-off donations. It took 10 years to complete and some 30,000 site visits were made. The artworks are now recorded in books,  each showing the paintings in that county.

There is a waiting list of people wanting to go to Boughton House. However it is always worth putting your name on this list by contacting Shirley Skinner, as unforeseen circumstances can arise.

Because we are currently having difficulty in finding a suitable book on Chagall, the member with the winning raffle ticket at the AGM may receive another art book.

The AGM papers, including the renewal form, will be emailed to you around the 1^st June and there will be no update that month. Please remember to check your spam folder or clutterbox if it does not arrive and failing that, contact Keith (kroberts @globalnet.co.uk)

Further to my comment last month  that RLSDFAS valued relationships with other local arts organisations, perhaps I should make it clear that this does not relate to sponsorship. There may be information we can share and ways in which we can help each other. For example, we may have a lecture that would greatly appeal to members of another organization and we would consider inviting them to come as guests.

Felicity Furber, Chairman

On the 4th May, Steven Desmond, an independent landscape consultant specialising in the conservation and management of historic gardens and architecture, will be looking at English gardens and Capability Brown, who was born 300 years ago.

Before this lecture, Jenny Edwards and Shirley Skinner will be selling tickets for the day trip to Boughton House on the 17th August. This palatial Northamptonshire home of the Dukes of Buccleuch and Queensberry is rich in the decorative arts and has well known gardens. The building was begun in Tudor times and in the 1690s it was added to in the baroque style. Tickets for this trip which include a light lunch cost £44.00 each and as usual payment is by cheque.

Before the AGM on the 6th July, we shall be copying the example of other DFAS societies, including Stratford-upon-Avon, and having a raffle. Tickets will cost 50p each or 5 for £2.00. The owner of the winning ticket will receive a book on Chagall costing about £20.00. (Chagall is the subject of the lecture.) Money raised will go to boost the amount we can afford to give out in sponsorship and donations.

This year, we will be sending out the AGM papers by email. This will result in a significant cost saving for the Society. We will have a small number printed for distribution at the June lecture for members who do not receive emails. Please watch out for the AGM papers in your inbox next month.

Your committee is going to explore the possibility of establishing links with other arts related organisations in the area. If you know of any such organisations and especially if you can give us contact details for them, we should be delighted to hear from you.

Best wishes
Felicity Furber, Chairman

At her lecture on the 2^nd March, Vivien Heffernan explored Shakespeare through the eyes of artists, making use of visual images and sound recordings. She has a long association with Stratford and Shakespeare and her lecture lived up to her previous high standards.

On the 6^th April, Leslie Primo will return to Leamington Spa to talk to us about the philosophers, industrialists and scientists who were members of the Lunar Society, a gentlemen’s club in Birmingham in the 18^th Century. He will explore their achievements, common interests and connections through the paintings of Reynolds and other artists.

There are still places available on the trip to Bath in September, at a cost of £329 per person. This three day break will include visits to an 18^th century landscape garden, art galleries, Bath Abbey (where evensong can be heard), the refurbished Roman Baths, the Assembly Rooms, a private tour of the American museum etc. If you cannot reserve a place at the April lecture, I suggest you contact John Clark whose email address and telephone number are on the programme card but please remember that he will be in Malta for part of March.

All the tickets for the day trip to Wightwick Manor have been sold and there is a waiting list. There are a few tickets left for the Biennial Dinner on the 25^th May.

Felicity Furber, Chairman.

We look forward to welcoming Vivien Heffernan on the 2^nd March. Vivien is a distinguished lecturer on the history of art and a practising artist. She has given us two very well received lectures in recent years. This year, which is the 400^th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, her title will be Murders, Magicians, Madmen and Monarchs – Shakespeare through Artists.

On the 2^nd March you can also buy tickets for the Biennial Dinner at Stoneleigh Abbey on the 25^th May at £55 each. John Clark will be selling tickets for the trip to Bath from the 25^th to the 27^th September and these will cost £329 per person. Tickets for the day trip to Wightwick Manor on the 11^th May costing £23 will also be available.

Would members who took a questionnaire from Jenny Edwards please remember to return it to a committee member at the next lecture.

Felicity Furber (Chairman)